By KEVIN COLLISON
The Kansas City Star Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser said Wednesday that he opposed extraordinary tax breaks to help the Bannister Mall area redevelopment plan — incentives that backers say are vital for success.“It’s a wonderful project. I’m ready to sign off,” Funkhouser said at a development forum where he made a public appearance early in the day. “But I can’t stomach 23 years of Super TIF.”

Funkhouser later elaborated in a statement saying that while he was “excited” about the prospect of redeveloping the vacant mall property in south Kansas City, he wouldn’t support the $43.5 million in Super Tax Increment Financing being requested as part of the package to help finance the development.
Under Super TIF, all rather than just part of the local taxes generated by a project are diverted to help defray eligible costs.

The ambitious Three Trails redevelopment proposal, valued at almost $1 billion when fully built over 10 years, calls for a mixed-use development anchored by a new stadium for the Wizards professional soccer team. It would include a 12-field tournament-style soccer complex; a 250-room hotel; 609,000 square feet of retail space; and 610,500 square feet of office space.

The developers are seeking $273.3 million through a variety of local and state tax incentives to help finance the project.

“I want to see the Three Trails redevelopment happen,” Funkhouser said. “But I don’t intend to support the current plan without more thorough discussion and, at least, the removal of the Super TIF requirement, which redirects 100 percent of any new property, sales and earnings taxes back to the project.”

The development group backing the project, which includes top executives of Cerner Corp. and Lane4 Property Group, contends that Super TIF is needed to fill a financial gap for the project.

It remains unclear what effect Funkhouser’s position with have on the development group’s pursuit of the project at the Bannister Mall site. The developers have sought a decision by the Kansas City Council by the end of December to meet a construction timetable that calls for the soccer stadium to be open by spring 2010.
Project backers, who have considered alternative sites elsewhere in the area, could not be reached for comment after Funkhouser’s statement.

Besides the use of Super TIF, Funkhouser also objects to the plan’s provision that the city own the soccer stadium, saying it would require long-term expense and attention.

“The construction of the city-owned Sprint Center required a new tax and public vote, yet we are considering this plan with neither,” Funkhouser said in his statement. “I want to be sure we have thought through that decision and its fiscal impact on the city.”
The mayor’s announcement threw a new twist into a discussion that already had gotten off to a poor start earlier in the day.

At a meeting of the council’s Finance and Audit Committee, at which dozens of people testified, most favored the project. But Chairwoman Deb Hermann postponed a recommendation on the project after becoming frustrated by widely differing economic impact estimates submitted to her panel.

The city’s Finance Department issued an analysis indicating that the city would have a $41 million negative impact over the 23-year life of the project’s proposed financing. An analysis by the Economic Development Corp., in contrast, indicated a $45 million net benefit over the same period.
Both groups use different ways of evaluating the economics, and Hermann decided to seek additional time to sort out the issue.

Her committee has one more meeting scheduled before the end of the year.

“You just can’t give me a scenario with an $86 million swing,” Hermann said. “I’m not a financial expert. That’s why we have a Finance Department.”

Further complicating matters, Councilman John Sharp, a strong supporter of the Three Trails project, said Funkhouser had received a letter from state officials stating that any state aid for the project was contingent on the city’s granting the Super TIF assistance.

The project seeks $20.7 million in state tax-increment financing and $10 million in state tax credits.

This is one case where there is a chance for it to be different. If they leave some fields as open fields on the weekends, they have the potential to tap into a HUGE Saturday night/all day Sunday Latino market. Every weekend at Blue River Park in the Grandview Triangle there are thousands of Mexicans/Latinos playing soccer. And when I say thousands, I am not exagerating. They are all hungry and all thirsty, and the only businesses around to cater to them are a couple of chromed out trailers selling homemade tamales. If they can tap into the Latino market and setup lighted night games and Sunday games it could really work out to bring business to the area.

Of course I am not sure Mexicans improve an areas "Hill" placement much more than blacks do, so it might not do anything for it's "down hill" status. I am wondering how long we have until the new Walmart on the Blue Ridge Mall site becomes "dangerous". All of the busline criminals and lower income blacks that made the hypermart dangerous are now shopping at the Blue Ridge Walmart, but I haven't heard it officially declared as unsafe yet.

There is zero chance of that.. They already said that the fields would be used to bring in teams for tournaments outside of the area.. And most local teams would never get the chance to play there.. They certainly would not allow the games that go on by Grandview there(been there once with some of my indoor teammates)..

The fields are strictly there to make the owners rich.. Those people could give a rats ass about the local kids playing soccer, They just wanted to community to support them so they could get the thing built and the TIF so it was cheaper for them to do it..

Guarantee most of those businesses will go belly up in five years or less in that new district..

They want to tap that area, then just build the stadium, hotel for games/tourneys, 1-2 restaurants, 3-5 bars/nightclubs..

What I would do though is scrap the shopping district they want to build, build the stadium, massive soccer complex, hotel, 2 restaurants/bar types..

And then mostly for the locals build one indoor soccer(ala the soccerdome,soccer usa) build multiple courts of indoor/outdoor volleyball, basketball courts... Could use some weekends for tournaments, but mainly needs to be built and supported by locals which it would since there is no real big outdoor volleyball complex in kc outside of kansas...

Now it's time to replace them along the corridor, starting with some new convenience stores around the park and ride at Red Bridge, and hopefully finally renovating the former Crest Drive-in property that presently has that first of the failed new era of hardware stores [what was it called, Home-something, before Home Depo and before Lowes].

The still-vacant HQ building. Well, vacant to retail, I think it was leased for storage space or something.

The still-vacant HQ building. Well, vacant to retail, I think it was leased for storage space or something.

Last time I was by there it was a Wal-Mart storage building, but that was before Hypermart closed down.

As for old Bannister Mall, I dropped in on the last day it was open. Looked like a few small clothing stores, a car audio place, a couple of "general" stores, and about a half dozen places that seemed to specialize in oral jewlery. The Southern Half of the mall had been partitioned off and shut down for a few months already, from what I was told.

Oh, and there was a little pet shop. Very nice people. I hope they found somewhere else for their business.

__________________
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Came across this while searching for the old Academy threads. KC government is so damn stupid. I hope that a hard core Chiefs fan (Sly)makes KC a little better place to live. How's he doing?

Well not only KCMO but OPKC. Idiot mayor Carl Gerlach passed on building it as well. That left KCKS to build what has been recognized as one of the top soccer facilities in the world and one that has won awards over other venues of all types all over the world.

Thank God for KCMO's ineptness. Boo for OPKS.

__________________Meet the new boss same as the old boss.

BigChiefDave:"Anyone who thought we would only be in Iraq for a few years is either stoned or just stoopid."
"It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last 6 days, 6 wks. I doubt 6 mths." Rummy 2/7/03

Came across this while searching for the old Academy threads. KC government is so damn stupid. I hope that a hard core Chiefs fan (Sly)makes KC a little better place to live. How's he doing?

I don't know. I like Sly a lot as a person based on the short amount of time I've spent with him at Coalition stuff. I didn't particularly care for his "read between the lines" insinuations that disgruntled fans may have contributed to the incident Saturday morning. But I do acknowledge that he was put on the spot and didn't really have an opportunity to think his commentary through fully.

Well not only KCMO but OPKC. Idiot mayor Carl Gerlach passed on building it as well. That left KCKS to build what has been recognized as one of the top soccer facilities in the world and one that has won awards over other venues of all types all over the world.

Thank God for KCMO's ineptness. Boo for OPKS.

Who in the hell would have in their right mind thought that Wyandotte county would have EVER been any kind of destination location fifteen years ago?